Social Skills Unscripted

We are talking about why school tends to be challenging for our neurodivergent kids, some of the pitfalls of having a reputation for being smart, and the only way to overcome our old reputation.

How we work with our students if they don't remember something or aren't paying attention, how we encourage an environment where all our kids feel safe to participate and engage, how we support our kids who wait to be invited to play, and navigating pretend play.

I'm interviewing Lisa Mortensen, who is becoming licensed to teach our curriculum and is opening her own social club in Ohio this summer! Check it out at www.SpectrumSocial.org. We talk about her incredible neurodivergent family, her path to starting her own club, and her goals for the future of her students (and her own kids).

In this episode, I'm talking about students sharing examples of using what they have learned at Starfish Social Club, the difference between laughing at someone vs. something, how we handle kids getting upset with each other, what we do when kids don't want to participate, and talking about the social context.

In this episode we are talking about the strategies we use to help our students recognize they are complaining (and what to do instead), suggestions for kids with communication challenges, and how we support our autistic and ADHD kids as they support each other.

Ramiro and I are talking about the importance of teaching our autistic and ADHD students how to give and receive social feedback, what the most important natural social consequence is, and how we support kids with social anxiety.

Ramiro and I are talking about the goings-on in less than 2 hours with our students last week! We talk about why there's no such thing as doing things wrong when it comes to social skills, 'bad' kids, discussions about being popular vs. being kind, and a whole lot about asking questions to build our students' social awareness!

While what I teach is the same for all our kids, HOW I teach it is different! I approach, respond to, and manipulate situations differently. I ask different questions. I phrase things differently. I reframe certain ideas or concepts. I create scenarios accordingly. It's all part of the magic around here!

I’m going to challenge us to analyze our thoughts and beliefs about our autistic/ADHD kids, and see if there are some beliefs that need to go the way of the leaves this fall. 

I’m going to be a bit cliché and share my ‘how it started/how it’s going’ journey with you. Where I am in Starfish Social Club today is absolutely not where I was many years ago when I started my special education journey. I bet my ‘how it started’ story will be very relatable!

For a while now (probably over a year) I’ve been feeling like what we do at Starfish Social Club isn’t enough. If you don’t know, I teach autistic and ADHD kids and teens how to make friends.  That part of it is AMAZING. I’m so proud and excited for my students and the progress and growth they make, the connections they make with other kids, the challenges we work through on a weekly basis… That part of it is, hands down, AMAZING!   What I don’t do very well is teach other adults how to best support our kids. Which means the skills and strategies my students are learning probably don’t make it too far past our parking lot.   I have a new plan, and a personal reason why it's so important to me. www.StarfishSocialClub.org/empoweredadvocate

Does your child struggle with time management? Do they get overwhelmed when things need to get done? Do they spend more time resisting or refusing than actually doing the thing? Do they have a reputation for procrastinating, or for never being on time? If your child is autistic or has ADHD, you probably relate to at least one of these. Time management is one of the big challenges for people with executive functioning deficits, which is a core part of autism and ADHD. Today we’re talking about why time management is a struggle for so many of our autistic and ADHD kids, and how we can help them develop this skill.

What happens when we teach neurodivergent kids social rules? They are likely to become the kids who either get ignored by other kids, or who have a reputation for being annoying. Why is that? How come when we try so hard to help our kids make friends, we sometimes end up sabotaging them instead?   There really is no such thing as a social rule. There are no black and white situations when it comes to interacting with other people. When we pretend like there are, we do our kids a major disservice. We create social robots who ask rote questions on autopilot, like ‘What’s your name?’ and ‘What are you doing?’ and ‘How are you?’. Let’s talk about how to move away from social rules, especially for our autistic and ADHD kids who tend to be very rule-focused.

Does your kiddo refuse to apologize for things, even when there is evidence of the crime? Or do they apologize for everything?? Why is the concept of apologizing difficult for autistic and ADHD kids? I'm going to share some of the reasons, as well as some ways we may be making it worse, and how to focus on what really matters! August 25th is 'Kiss and Make Up Day!' What a great time to talk about apologizing! 

August 16 is 'Tell a Joke Day'! In this episode, I'm talking all about how our neurodivergent kiddos who struggle with social awareness may struggle with humor. Humor can be challenging for them to understand, and challenging for them to share. Let's talk about why, and how we can help!

This episode is a follow-up to episode 6. In episode 6, I talked about how the way we have learned to praise our neurodivergent kids is actually pretty flawed. It can have long-lasting consequences in terms of their self-esteem, relationships, employment, general happiness... even though we're doing what we think is best.  In this episode, I'm sharing the ways to praise our kids that actually provide them with healthy self-esteem, boundaries, self awareness... all the things we really want for our kids so they can have happy, bright futures!

Welcome to episode six of Social Skills is Canceled. This episode is all about how we praise and reinforce our neurodivergent kids. It lays the foundation for the challenges that may arise with the way we praise our kids, and episode seven will be about what to focus on instead.

This episode is all about the concept of summer schedules for our neurodivergent students. Your child needs a summer schedule, even if you don't think they do! Most importantly, this episode journeys through the STARFISH acronym to provide some different ways to use your child's summer schedule to help them be more flexible, independent, solution-seeking, all of the things that are part of our STARFISH acronym. A summer schedule that you create WITH your child can help them be more of ALL of the things that we work on at Starfish Social Club!

Autism Awareness Month has just come to an end. This episode is all about why I don't talk about Autism Awareness Month, and why I think it's actually a disservice to our kiddos. 

In this episode, I’m talking about how to find the best source of friends for your neurodivergent kiddo, as well as outlining the challenges with traditional friendship matchmaking strategies used in school and at home.

This episode is all about what’s really getting in the way of your child or teen making and keeping friends. I’m going to introduce you to the STARFISH scale so we can get a sense of your child’s level of awareness. If you haven’t already done so, you can access a free replay of the workshop I did in April on this topic! It's on our website at www.StarfishSocialClub.org.

This episode is all about how and why I went from being a go-to social skills expert to not teaching social skills at all! Now I focus on teaching our kids the things that REALLY matter when it comes to making friends, and I’m on a mission to help others do the same!